Protest method for NYC convention

[NewYorkerfromMass]

What's the best way to protest? I tried to leave things broadly described.

[WilliamPitt]

1. .

[NewYorkerfromMass]

2. Can people give examples of "minor civil disobedience"?

Thanks

[Cheswick2.0]

3. refusing to protest in "free speech zones"

[CaptainClark23]

5. Refusal to recognise

"Legal and Proscribed"

As the proscriptions themselves are illegal and unconstitutional.

In other words, I will walk where and when I damn well please. I do not take this to mean that I can waltz into MSG. Thats a private affair for which the RNC has paid rent, and my uninvited intrusion there would be trespassing.

But I will not be penned, I will not be herded, and I will not be afraid on my own streets to speak my mind.

[Monte Carlo]

4. The GOP WANTS the protests to be violent

They are salivating over some death and destruction going on outside. It'll be their greatest dreams fulfilled.

For God's sake, keep it civil and non-violent. The DNC protests went well without any big incidents, and they're points got across to the nation.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

6. Agreed, but I am not sure what scenario they are salivating for

I was in an anti-draft march in 1980 which ended at President Carter's re-election office in midtown. There was a huge throng which filled the street chanting, and then suddenly someone threw a rock through a window of Carter's office, in which there were people looking down at us. The police immediately waded into the crowd with night clubs to break it up.

It would be too easy for disruptors to sabotage these protests.
How can we make them sabotage proof?

[Monte Carlo]

7. I've thought about that for a bit...

... and the biggest problem that I see the protest having is that at a glance, the protests appear to be some big, amorphous blob.

When people see the protests on the news, you see the police - organized, disciplined, and uniformed - and you know who they are and what they are doing there. You see the protesters - fragmented, disorderly and (usually) cheaply dressed - and you just aren't sure about their purpose there, or if they really believe in it.

I think to make the marches more sabotage-proof, a little pre-planning is going to have to be done. There needs to be at least SOME uniformity, some common thread that is obvious to a casual observer. There also needs to be a strong, VERY STRONG association with this common symbol with the purpose of the protests.

That's what I think. Protests just aren't what they used to be in the 60's.

[Kanary]

8. I wish there was still time to implement your ideas

I think you have made a *very* important point re: making the purpose very clear to casual observers.

If a protest is to communicate, that communication must be very clear.

If the protest is only to vent frustration, there are other ways to do it.

It's too late to do it now, but I wish the "movement" would work with communications experts. sigh.... too bad it's coming to that, but that's what I see.

Kanary

[Monte Carlo]

9. Better late than never, I suppose.

Even if Bush is ousted next year, I don't think we've seen our last act of empire in our lifetimes.

The protests NEED to be more than just the protesters. There has to be something higher that unifies them.

It just seems to me that the whole point of these protests is to get a message out, yet the protesters have been so hopelessly unable to send a loud and clear message out to the country. They're intentions are noble but their execution just plain sucks.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

10. I think just showing up in Central Park en masse

would be a great protest in itself. There's plenty of room for at least a half million people.

[sleepyhead]

11. Agreed.

They can't very well close off the entire park. And who's to say that a large group of people didn't just *happen* to meander into the park on a fine late-summer day?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

17. kick for that idea. nt

[Eric J in MN]

12. I am against blocking traffic.

I didn't vote because I find the choices too vague.

[eridani]

13. Get into people's heads, not their physical space

Be like the Freeway Blogger. Think outside the box.

[MFUSA]

14. Peaceful Always

[otohara]

15. I'm Worried - See Today's Salon Story

about Chicago - and how it backfired on Dems. Will we learn from history? http://salon.com/

[Cleita]

16. The Chicago police were very heavy handed with the protesters

which soured the nation on the Democrats. Maybe souring the nation on the Republicans could be a good thing. If you can find a copy in the library of James Michner's "The Drifters"(I think it's out of print now), he has a fictionalized account of what happened at the protests, which is pretty close to what really did happen.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

18. Well, we seem to have a clear consensus

Minor civil disobedience it is. See you all in Central Park for the big picnic!